


The Years

by vega_voices



Series: Sleeps with Butterflies [39]
Category: CSI, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Is this a good time?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Years

**Title:** The Years  
 **Series:** [Sleeps with Butterflies](http://vega-voices.livejournal.com/tag/sleeps%20with%20butterflies)  
 **Author:** vegawriters  
 **Fandom:** CSI  
 **Pairing:** Grissom/Sara  
 **Rating:** Teen  
 **A/N:** Directly follows the final scene in _Dead Air_. (Season 13)  
 **Disclaimer:** I’m unagented and I’m not a member of the writer’s union. If I change that will you hire me? Until then, I don’t make any money off of these characters I adore so much. No infringement is intended and Sara Sidle, Gil Grissom, and all parties belong to their respective powers that be.

 **Summary:** _Is this a good time?_

DB closed the door when he stepped out and Sara stood there, in her boss’ office, talking to the man who had once inhabited this room. His voice through the tinny speaker on the phone washed around her and for an instant she was back, thirteen years ago when she’d first stepped foot into the room and looked around at the shelves of bugs and the irradiated fetal pig that now lived near her desk. Ten years ago, she’d asked him to dinner and he’d denied her and she’d walked away, agitated and humiliated, expecting that he’d never come back around. She stood right where she had, eight years ago, when he’d called her in and closed the door behind him, and before she’d taken a seat, he’d asked for a second chance. She’d leaned against the desk and cried unwitting tears while telling him that they had to take it slow. She couldn’t just jump back into a life with him, not when their life to that point had been so rocked with angst. He’d stood there, across the room, giving them both space while she made the final decision on the future of their love life. Now, she leaned against the desk, feeling the cool surface beneath her fingers, and wanted Gil here, facing her, while they talked.

Talked. About what really?

_Is this a good time?_

When was it ever a good time with them anymore? How had it come so far, how had they drifted so far apart that not even standing in the office while she talked to him could make him appear. Not even seeing him over the holidays could make it better. She thought it was telling that Julie had asked if she’d talked to Gil since Doug … Sara had been gone for two weeks at Christmas and still she didn’t seem like a happily married woman.

What _had_ they talked about in Peru?

Well, there was research and her endometriosis and the weather that drove them down from the camp ground to the base camp. They’d had sex, so much sex, but what had they actually discussed other than her helping him with some notes and him asking if she was in a lot of pain? Was that what a marriage was? What her marriage was? Just two people talking about the small points of the day without any hope for the larger picture? Or did she only notice it more because she never saw her husband so when she did, she wanted to share everything? Only now, she wanted to leap through the phone and disappear into nothingness. Not even into his arms. Because right now, she wasn’t sure if they’d catch her.

Work was safe but work had always been safe. Even when things were at their worst with her and Gil and coming to work had been a chore bordering on the grunt work heaped upon her by foster siblings, work had been safe. Because if she was confrontational with Gil, he would fight back. If she was submissive, he would reward her. And so she’d played his game because it was what she knew and it wasn’t until he’d come to her, asking if they could start over, that she’d realized they could be healthy, if they chose to be.

So was that what was happening now? Were they again asking themselves if they could choose to be healthy? Were they at a crossroads that could change everything? Eight years ago he’d sat in her living room and held her hand while she confessed the sins she’d witnessed. He’d pulled her onto his lap and held her, like a husband held a wife, and she’d sobbed into his shoulder until he put her to bed and tucked her in tight and retreated to the lab to save her job. Eight years ago, he’d watched, helpless, while a psychopath had trapped her and tried to rape her and he’d offered to save her from her demons, all the while allowing her to save herself. Eight years ago, they’d kissed on a Sunday morning, and he’d picked her up and carried her to her bed and that time, when they made love, there was nothing to regret when they woke.

Five years ago he’d found her in the desert and held her hand while her body refused to stabilize. He’d bathed her and dressed her and brushed every tangle out of her hair, minding her sunburned body with care. He’d proposed over a bee colony and she’d accepted with tears in her heart because for the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to want to commit to someone for the rest of eternity. But five years ago she’d fled, not him but Vegas, and he’d taken it personally. He’d assumed he couldn’t care for her enough. And so when, four years ago, he’d shown up in the jungle, she’d refused to believe it at first. When he’d slipped the ring on her finger they’d both wept. The partnership was as it should have been, as it was born, and as it would go into eternity.

But now she was here, away from him, and he was away from her and they weren’t partners but instead co-signers on a mortgage and joint owners of an eight year old Boxer and she needed to focus on what he was saying because it was important and it was a conversation she needed to be a part of. But all she wanted to do was let his voice wash over her while she wiped away tears she hated to cry.

_Are you okay?_

And for once, she couldn’t lie.


End file.
